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This whole "White House Party Crasher" story is a look into the minds of the media elites that are promoting it. The Villagers certainly have their knickers in a bunch over this dastardly couple who got into the State dinner. Howard Kurtz did a segment on it today which looked like it was going to delve into the media's obsession of this story, but it quickly turned into a justification of their actions. Two WaPo reporters were on CNN today discussing how they broke the story, but even they didn't believe it would amount to more than a few days of news. The Villagers would have none of that.

Here's Roxanne Roberts and Amy Argetsinger telling us what's what.

KURTZ: And not just yours. As we saw, everybody was talking about it.

Look, in the first 48 hours, it seemed to me, there was a legitimate concern about security. The Secret Service apologized. People -- anyone said, gee, how could somebody who wasn't invited get so close to the president of the United States? But now, it seems to me, that's kind of a fig leaf for our interest in the more gossipy aspects of this story.

Howard Kurtz made a point about the seriousness of this idiocy. I'd say resentment should be part of his analysis too. How dare these bumpkins get into their very private elitist party. They must pay, and so does anyone from Obama's administration who dared let them in.

ARGETSINGER: But they are under investigation now by the state of Virginia, not just because of allegations about their charity, but because of allegations about their entire polo match that they've been throwing the past three years.

They're in some pretty serious trouble. And this is the thing, we don't really know. They seem to be enjoying themselves in front of the cameras, but they may be well aware of the fact that they're in very grave trouble right now.

KURTZ: But at the same time, they're sort of milking this. I mean, they go on "The Today Show" and they make themselves available for the cameras. I mean, if they skate by without any legal complications, they could be one of the most famous reality show couples.

ARGETSINGER: Well, this is the big question.

KURTZ: We're aiding and abetting this by talking about it now.

ARGETSINGER: This is a big question. I mean, does Bravo have a liability on their hands, or is Bravo sitting on a gold mine with this footage? They've had this couple on film for the past three months.

KURTZ: If it was just Tareq Salahi, and his blonde wife was not part of the picture, would we still be talking about this?

ROBERTS: It wouldn't be nearly as interesting. I mean, what makes this story, what takes this from sort of an interesting one-or- two-day story, is the fact that this couple is so over the top and so flamboyant.

There are so many stereotypes -- the thin, ambitious blonde, who was never, in fact, a Redskins cheerleader. All the tall tales that they've told, all those things, that's what makes it so fascinating.

KURTZ: Maybe that's why the media aren't letting this go. And, of course, this hasn't fully played out, so we'll get to talk about it maybe next week.

The Villagers need to keep going with the story because this couple is just too damn flamboyant. The media have taken it to the max and it doesn't look like they'll let it go any time soon. Their rage is focused on the White House social secretary named Desiree Rogers---so in essence it's actually directed at Michelle Obama. With all that is happening in America today, these nitwits are screaming on and on about this couple that they find odious. The security breach should be thoroughly checked out, but this couple appear on every damn news show like they have stolen national security secrets. And we're told that the reason they still are a big story is because they keep on lying and being weird.

Digby has been following this story and it reminds us of the time the media went ballistic against Hillary Clinton:

The fatuous gasbags were all atwitter yesterday that the White House is "stonewalling" to protect their "old Chicago pal" Desiree Rogers, the White House social secretary. As I said the other day, this is rapidly turning into a "travelgate" type Village scandal and someone is going to have to go down, preferably one who falls under the auspices of Michelle Obama, who has clearly made some kind of social error.

Just as Travelgate was about Hillary Clinton failing to respect the social pecking order by installing old Arkansas friends in a job in which the press had a personal stake, (Ryan's comments about "overshadowing" notwithstanding) I'm pretty sure this is about Michele and "her pal" somehow not respecting the pecking order and failing to understand just how sacrosanct are the invitation lists to the White House. (You'll recall that Michelle had a press avail the day of the state dinner and mentioned that she regretted not being able to invite everyone, which I thought was rather odd at the time.)

The lesson has long been clear. You do not mess with the Village tabbies. They have far more power than you might think.

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Andrea Mitchell asked a Villager health-care panel on her show today to discuss how Harry Reid can get to 60 votes with the public option since the "Gang of Four" refuses to budge and threatens to kill health-care reform entirely.

Mitchell: And Ruth Marcus, what do they do, how do they water down the public option to make it acceptable to some of the moderates but placate some of the more liberals?

Marcus: Well, it's the "and still placate some of the more liberals" is the hardest part. You're dealing with a very complex Rubik's cube really at this point because every time you change something to please someone, you're annoying someone else and potentially losing his or her vote.

But the public option, I think, could be scaled back. There is already something that Sen. Carper from Delaware is working on in terms of allowing it to take effect perhaps more quickly in states or immediately in states which have very high costs and other states could opt in. There is Sen. Snowe's old trigger option that one could still pull the trigger on, so there are ways of doing it.

I think that in the end it is possible to mollify enough of the centrist Democrats, perhaps even a Republican -- now that seems awfully remote. The president, I think, is going to have to tell the left wing of his party and the balking liberal Senators that it is crazy to pull down the entirety of health care over this one issue which the president has already said is not the be all end all of health reform.

It's always the liberals who need to compromise their positions to the conventional wisdom of the Villagers. The Gang of Four are all righteous and virtuous while liberals are out-of-control hippies who act like barking dogs. How dare they want to produce a real reform measure that could eventually provide true competition for the health care industry and that will help lower overall health care costs? Outrageous!

Remember, Marcus was being a concern troll the day after America elected Obama to the presidency with a mandate to overhaul health care and wrote a column telling him to not to govern from the left.

Yet the experience of President Bill Clinton's rocky early months -- remember gays in the military? the BTU tax? -- suggests the steep political price of governing in a way that is, or seems, skewed to the left. This risk is particularly acute for Obama, whose opponents have painted him as a leftist extremist. The good news is that his advisers seem exquisitely aware of this trap and determined not to fall into it.

As David Sirota wrote:

The standard lie about Clinton's failures aside (it was NAFTA, stupid), the last sentence is particularly odd. Obama's "opponents have painted him as a leftist extremist." Yet, that supposed "leftist extremist" won the largest presidential mandate in the last generation.

And somehow, having done that, we are supposed to believe that means he should tack to the right.

Say what?

Email Marcus and ask her why the Gang of Four aren't the real problem, since 56 other Senators are fine with the public option: marcusr@washpost.com

John Cole finds Chuck Todd wanking away on Twitter.

Shorter Chuck Todd: It’s only big news if the Democrats fail!

I guess he didn’t pick up on the fact that if they had failed to get the 60 votes, HCR would, for all intents and purposes, be dead in the short run, as the Republicans would filibuster. That is why this is such a big deal- they have overcome the obstructionism of the GOP, and the debate can advance.

Although in fairness to Chuck, he may be more concerned with why Obama didn’t reach out more to President McCain. Not to be too subjective, or anything.

*** Update ***

Can anyone imagine the feeding frenzy for the next two weeks if they had failed to get 60 and advance the debate? Can you imagine the Sunday shows tomorrow? Can you imagine all the headlines speculating if Obama was a lame duck? “Senate fails to advance health care reform. Is Obama’s entire agenda at risk?” and “Obama’s signature legislation killed in Senate. Can he recover?” and “Republicans, spurred by sagging Obama poll numbers and grass roots support from tea party, stop Obama administration in their tracks.”

And Chuck Todd would be leading the goddamned charge with that crap.

Chuck Todd explains in Twitterific form what the Village really thinks. Does he not understand how the legislative process works? Nope. Does he remember that it was a Blue Dog Royal Senator named Max Baucus that helped pass Bush's tax cuts and medicare drug plan:

Some Democrats think Mr. Baucus betrayed the party in 2001 when he supported President George W. Bush's tax cuts, and in 2003 when he was one of two Democrats to help Republicans pass a Medicare prescription drug plan.

If George Bush had failed at getting these through, would Todd be questioning the conservative movement? Nope. They would be telling America that since they elected Bush, the Democrats were traitors to America. But when a Democrat is President all the Villagers look forward to is failure.

Corrente: One Down: Schlecher County jury convicts Jessop of child rape. And speaking of convictions...

Open Left: Only fiscal conservatives would say we can't afford to reduce the deficit

TPMMuckraker: Patriot Games: GOP lawmakers skip national security votes to toast tea baggers

Oliver Willis: Eric Cantor, soon to be pimp slapped...watch, ring, and all

David Rees:10 jokes about Joe Lieberman

ANNALS OF JOURNALISM: Brad Jacobson's investigative series..."Official" media criticism...A perfect match...Odd couple...Coming Sunday: NYT does something unprecedented...WaPo Co. crashed-and-burned-and-smoking...Terrorism, Islam and Fort Hood...Huffington: We do not live in the age of misinformation..Journamalism....Bumped... Gibbs...Special Suburbanites...More honors for Sy Hersh...Scribe nominates himself for CA Lt. Governor...

Dean Baker makes an astute observation:

Okay, I'm not on vacation, but this is a BTP flashback. My original write-up of this NYT news article was way too positive. This article was essentially a diatribe against Germany's welfare state. To make its case, it turned an incredible success story -- Germany's relatively low unemployment rate -- into a failure.

The basic deal is that Germany adopted an explicit policy of encouraging employers to shorten work hours rather than lay off workers. The government allows unemployment benefits to be used to pay workers to cover most of the loss in wages due to the shorter workweek.

As a result, Germany's unemployment rate has barely changed in the downturn. Its unemployment rate at present is 7.7 percent. This is down from 7.8 percent earlier in the year. Germany's unemployment rate in 2007 was 8.4 percent, 0.7 percentage points higher than the current level.

This is an incredible success story. Imagine Barack Obama's approval rating if the unemployment rate today was anywhere close to its 4.7 percent average for 2007. Think of the millions of unemployed workers who would not be struggling to pay their rent or mortgages or meet other bills if only our leaders were as smart as Germany's leaders. We could do something along the same lines in the U.S.

But NYT readers will be spared such thoughts because the article described the policy as a complete failure. To make its case, the NYT even used the German government's measurement of unemployment (which counts part-time workers as being unemployed) rather than the harmonized OECD measure that is directly comparable to the unemployment data in the United States.

This was not news reporting.

Dean is one of the best economists we have.

CNN's media critic, Howard Kurtz, came up with THE answer to all our complaints:

KURTZ: And if liberals or conservatives like David Brooks don't like what the high-decibel pundits say or think they're peddling misinformation, they should go after them in the media marketplace, not with boycotts or name-calling or screaming or shouting, but on the battlefield of ideas.

Wow, that's so simple. Why didn't anybody think of that? Wait a second. Just hold on there. Isn't organizing a boycott an actual idea which then takes a ton of work to be successful? Isn't leading a boycott against a Glenn Beck or a Lou Dobbs actually going into the media marketplace and hitting them right in the pocketbook?

Can Howard suggest what battlefield of ideas I should go on? Does he consider Reliable Sources one of those battlefields? Can Howard help fund a radio program for me that will air either before or right after Sean Hannity, on all the same nationwide affiliates so I can at least partially compete with Hannidate's audience and have a chance to express my ideas at his level?

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Do ya think? Not only did Anita Dunn take a really strong stand for President Obama over the Roger Ailes run FOX Noise Propaganda Network, she also called out the conservative-teabagger movement in its entirety.

Dunn: A week ago many conservative commentators had been rejoicing in the fact, celebrating in the fact that the United States didn't get the Olympics, one week later they seem to be somewhat bitter at the fact that an American President was awarded the Nobel peace prize. So I think people will draw their own conclusions abut the reflexive negativity on the part of some commentators regardless of what happens...

Dunn held back no punches and stated fact. That's nice to see.
Howard Kurtz was pretty comical with his questions, but he was trying to provide some pushback, I guess.

KURTZ: You were quoted this week in Time Magazine as saying of Fox News, it's opinion journalism masquerading as news. What do you mean, "masquerading"?

See what I mean? But he did have to ask that.

DUNN: Well, you know, Howie, I think if we went back a year ago to the fall of 2008, to the campaign, that, you know, it was a time that this country was in two wars, that we'd had a financial collapse probably more significant than any financial collapse since the Great Depression. If you were a Fox News viewer in the fall election, what you would have seen would have been that the biggest story, the biggest threats facing America were a guy named Bill Ayers and something called Acorn, when the reality of it is that Fox News often operates almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party.

Yep, that sums up FOX Noise. Then she delivered the knockout punch.

Think Progress writes:

Last month, President Obama appeared on five Sunday morning talk shows, including Univision’s Al Punto. He rejected Fox, however. Dunn revealed this morning that Obama did not appear on Fox because of its reflexive, partisan opposition to Obama. Obama will go on Fox in the future, Dunn said, but when he goes on, “he’s going on to debate the opposition.”

And then after Kurtz asked her if the president would go on FOX ever again, she said this too:

Dunn: That when he goes on FOX, he understands he's not going on, it really isn't a news network at this point, he's going to debate the opposition and that's fine.

The opposition, I loved that.

Howard asked someone from FOX to appear on Reliable Sources, but they refused and instead issued their usual statement. They'd rather have BillO speak to his audience than have anybody debate the facts -- especially, of course, on another network. FOX gives their usual argument that while they do have news, people really rely on their opinion programs. That's stunning really. MSNBC has their lefty hosts too, but during the day, you'll hear all the news and not MSNBC's opinion version of the news.

Kurtz did his best to find a few reporters that he thought weren't corrupted by Ailes so he mentioned Major Garrett. Do you think he's fair...Please say he's fair...Oh please oh please oh please. And Anita then calmly explained why they didn't go on Chris Wallace. Good for her.

And I told Major quite honestly that we had told Chris Wallace that having fact-checked an administration guest on his show -- something I've never seen a Sunday show do. And, Howie, you can show me examples of where Sunday shows have fact-checked previous weeks' guests, and I'd be happy to see those. We asked Chris, for an example, where he had done that to anybody besides somebody from the administration in the year 2009. And we're still waiting to hear from him.

She didn't stop there.

Dunn: Let's be realistic here, Howie. They are widely viewed as, you know, a part of the Republican Party. Take their talking points, put them on the air. Take their opposition research, put them on the air, and that’s fine. But let’s not pretend they’re a news network they way CNN is.

Kurtz did his best to try and get her to differentiate between the Beck's show and their little news nuggets, and she wouldn't back down. Where's the John Ensign coverage? she asks Howie. Hmmm, you won't see it much -- if at all -- on FOX. And that's only one example out of thousands.

Following in the footsteps of the Washingtn Post, The NY Times mad fools of themselves when they suddenly decided that Glenn Beck and his right wing cohorts like Andrew Breitbart are credible news sources.
Eric Boehlert explains in his excellent article: The NY Times' pointless pursuit of right-wing "buzz" stories

Jill Abramson, the managing editor for news, agreed with me that the paper was "slow off the mark," and blamed "insufficient tuned-in-ness to the issues that are dominating Fox News and talk radio." She and Bill Keller, the executive editor, said last week that they would now assign an editor to monitor opinion media and brief them frequently on bubbling controversies.

-- New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt, September 26 column [emphasis added]

Talk about great timing!

Just after The New York Times announced it would appoint somebody to monitor the partisan opinion media more closely, and right after editors were chastened for reacting too slowly to buzzworthy news scoops launched by the conservative media, the right-wing press went into overdrive last week.

Like a proud peacock showing off its feathers, the right-wing media was in full bloom, showing the Times all the tricks that have made the movement's trade so renowned. There was outright lying, lying by omission, attempted guilt-by-association, U.S.-bashing, hateful smear campaigns (lots of those), fearmongering, incompetence, and just batshit crazy stuff. (Did I mention the heavy dose of crazy?) All the key notes were hit -- and in just one epic week. I hope the Times is enjoying its new-found, front-row seat to the right-wing media's slow-motion crack-up...read on

Please read the entire article for a list of lies the right has been pimping. Does the media really have to ask why Americans don't trust the traditional media as much anymore? When the Washington Post and the NY Times turn to FOX Noise for what the now seem to believe is legitimate news sourcing one has to wonder what ever happened to the meaning of the word "journalism." Acorn, dudes!

The Sunday talk shows certainly love John McCain. It's a joke that ABC has John McCain on as its guest almost weekly. He was just on August 23rd. Didn't he lose the general election? Being a guest once in a while is no biggie, but ABC's slavish behavior towards Sen. McCain is disturbing. They should just consummate their love affair and have him on every Sunday if they think his opinion outweighs all others.

I sure don't remember the media putting on John Kerry every week after he lost to Bush in 2005.

We constantly are seeing polling down from the major news services that follow President Obama's approval ratings and it is an important stat to keep track of, but can you tell me what the media is not covering? How low the Republicans have been polling ever since they became the party of "Waterloo."

The Democratic leaders do have terrible polling numbers, Nancy Pelosi has a 34% approval rating in DKOS's new poll and Harry Reid has a 31% approval rating, but let's take a look at the Republican leadership, shall we?

Mitch McConnell is polling at an 18% approval rating. That's eighteen percent. John Boehner is polling at 12% approval rating. Just think about that one. And it doesn't take much to make him cry. Mitch and Boehner are viewed less favorably than Dick Cheney was during the dark days of the Bush administration. Why don't we hear about that on teevee?

The overall approval ratings of Congressional Republicans is 17% as a party! The Dems are taking their lumps over this chaotic time, but nowhere near the kinds of wounds the GOP are suffering. The media make it appear that all these teabaggers are rallying around the RNC and the country just loves the Beltway elites' favorite party, but that's not true at all.

Let's see if we hear any of this on the Sunday talk Shows. But I won't hold my breath.

I always knew that the media would find a way to turn back to right-wing ideology after America voted out the conservatives who almost destroyed the country and the financial global economy. But I didn't know they would use a minor story like ACORN as their catalyst.

You know how the WaPost feels about liberals who complain, don't you? This is very troubling indeed. Apparently the Washington Post thinks it should be paying more attention to the crazed rantings of Glenn Beck and incorporate it into their news coverage.

Now you understand what we'll be up against the rest of Obama's term:

Conservative bloggers and commentators know how to turn up the heat on mainstream media. Glenn Beck did it one day last week on his Fox News program. Theatrically unhinged, he directed viewers to call their local newspaper and demand coverage of ACORN, the national community action group targeted in an embarrassing hidden video sting.

"Right now, get off the couch. While I'm talking, you pick up the phone. You call the newspaper," he commanded. If ACORN hasn't been on the front page, or if the paper isn't investigating the group's local activities, "then what the hell are they good for?"

Shortly, The Post and other papers were flooded with angry calls and e-mails.

It's tempting to dismiss such gimmicks. Fox News, joined by right-leaning talk radio and bloggers, often hypes stories to apocalyptic proportions while casting competitors as too liberal or too lazy to report the truth.

But they're also occasionally pumping legitimate stories. I thought that was the case with ACORN and, before it, the Fox-fueled controversy that led to the resignation of White House environmental adviser Van Jones.
{}

Post Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli said he worries "that we are not well-enough informed about conservative issues. It's particularly a problem in a town so dominated by Democrats and the Democratic point of view."

To guard against it, he said, "I challenge our reporters and editors with great frequency to look at what is going on across the political spectrum . . . at the extremes, among the rabble-rousers, as well as among policymakers." He said he pressed the National desk this week to provide more ACORN coverage.

The Post does not survey its staff to determine its ideological makeup.

The most authoritative recent research into the political leanings of newsrooms (including television, radio, magazines and wire services) shows they are considerably more liberal than the general public. At daily newspapers, those who "lean to the left still far outnumber those who lean to the right," said Indiana University journalism professor David H. Weaver, whose researchers surveyed 1,149 journalists in 2002 and recently conducted a follow-up study of 400.

A recent Pew Research nationwide survey said only 26 percent of those questioned believe news organizations try to protect against political bias, while 60 percent said news organizations are biased.

Beck is more provocateur than newsman. And Fox caters to conservatives. Working in concert, they and other right-leaning media have a large audience. Beck averages 2.25 million viewers.

The Post should follow its own news standards, not theirs. But it should pay attention to what they report.

The pseudo-elites who sit atop the media dogpile do think that conservatives represent the one true America, so they've found another reason to justify their actions and will submit to the new Matt Drudge of the right, Glenn Beck.

Please read the article thoroughly and then contact Andrew Alexander at 202-334-7582 or at ombudsman@washpost.com.

Please be civil and articulate.

Digby writes a lot more on this issue:

The methods of dissemination are the same as they ever were. They push the "scandal" through the right wing noise machine, work the refs hard (which isn't hard to do because the villagers are convinced that the right wing represents "Real America") and they create the illusion that something "doesn't pass the smell test." Here, we see that the wingnuts have convinced the Washington Post that "something is wrong," that the "Van Jones story" was a huge deal which they failed to cover and that they need to be more vigilant about ferreting out these important issues.

Continue reading »

The Villagers always find a way to attack progressives. Here's NBC's 'First Read,' that Chuck Todd is all about says this:

*** Fixing the public option fetish: But the speech also will be a failure if progressives -- Obama’s second audience tonight -- are still obsessing over the public option a week from now. We've said this before and we'll say it again: Obama never made the public option the focus of his health-care ideas, in the primaries or in general election. In fact, he never uttered the words "public option" or "public plan" in his big campaign speeches on health care. But there is no doubt that the public option has fired up the left, and how he sells them near-universal coverage and lower costs -- even if it means no public plan -- could very well be the trickiest part of tonight's speech. Indeed, that the White House allowed this to become the be-all, end-all on the left ("Public option or die!") remains a mystery. On TODAY this morning, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said that “there can be no reform without adequate choice and competition,” but didn’t say that choice and competition had to come from a public option.

You will never hear anything like this said about conservatives. Passionately supporting a piece of legislation that we consider vital to real health care reform is now considered a fetish by NBC. WTF is that?
Craig Crawford:

NBC News calls the public option a "fetish." Providing insurance to Americans who cannot afford or obtain coverage is a fetish? A fetish? Have things gone so awry that health care for all is considered a deviant concept. Seems to me that big media's knee-jerk defense of the status quo is the real fetish.

Craig nails it...in a good way that is and without a spanking reference that would be considered un-serious by the beltway elite.

Bobby Jindal Touts Louisiana's Economic Successes While Refusing to Credit Stimulus Package

I bet you won't hear about this on the Sunday Talk Shows even if you disagree with the way the president handled the stimulus.

From the WSJ: U.S. Economy Gets Lift From Stimulus

The U.S. economy is beginning to show signs of improvement, with many economists asserting the worst is past and data pointing to stronger-than-expected growth. On Tuesday, data showed manufacturing grew in August for the first time in more than a year. "There's a method to the madness. We're getting out of this," said Brian Bethune, chief U.S. financial economist at IHS Global Insight.

Much of the stimulus spending is just beginning to trickle through the economy, with spending expected to peak sometime later this year or in early 2010. The government has funneled about $60 billion of the $288 billion in promised tax cuts to U.S. households, while about $84 billion of the $499 billion in spending has been paid. About $200 billion has been promised to certain projects, such as infrastructure and energy projects.

Economists say the money out the door -- combined with the expectation of additional funds flowing soon -- is fueling growth above where it would have been without any government action.

Many forecasters say stimulus spending is adding two to three percentage points to economic growth in the second and third quarters, when measured at an annual rate. The impact in the second quarter, calculated by analyzing how the extra funds flowing into the economy boost consumption, investment and spending, helped slow the rate of decline and will lay the groundwork for positive growth in the third quarter -- something that seemed almost implausible just a few months ago. Some economists say the 1% contraction in the second quarter would have been far worse, possibly as much as 3.2%, if not for the stimulus.

I can tell you now that this news will be buried deep into the tar pit of Bobble heads' lost dreams and missing pens. I challenge the media to cover this. Will they? We'll see. All the idiot conservatives that said the stimulus failed have to eat their words because Rupert, the Overlord of their Universe has put it in his WSJ pages.

John McCain: The Stimulus is a Failure, But Don't Dare Ask Arizona to Give Any of the Money Back

dday says:

The recovery is still jobless thus far, which means it's not a real recovery yet. And the White House made two mistakes - one, they soft-pedaled the recession, claiming that unemployment would not go above 9% or so, leaving them susceptible to the charge that the stimulus isn't working; and two, they put far too much of the stimulus into tax cuts instead of the public investment that would have made it even more successful, particularly on the jobs front.

But without the public investment the stimulus has thus far provided and will continue to provide, we'd be mired in more negative growth and a near-depression.

Digby linked to this excellent piece by Edward Wasserman in the Miami Herald the other day and I just got around to reading it. He basically solves the news problem that we face.

You know, like how bogus claims are repeated endlessly throughout the media (like the health bill contains "death panels") and even though they are debunked---the damage is already done.

So this time, when it came to the "death panels," The Washington Post's influential media reporter, Howard Kurtz, observed: "For once, mainstream journalists did not retreat to the studied neutrality of quoting dueling antagonists." Reporters took the additional step of pointing out, on their own authority, that the proposals don't contain any such provision. To "he said, she said," was added: "we say."

Trouble is, it hasn't really mattered. Even though news organizations debunked the claim, 45 percent of respondents to an NBC poll still believe the reforms would indeed allow the federal government to halt treatment to the elderly -- a staggering number.

Why? Maybe because, by Kurtz's count, Palin's "death panels" were mentioned 18 times by his own paper, 16 times in The New York Times and at least 154 times on cable and network news (not including daytime news shows.)

Plainly, refuting a falsehood doesn't keep it from doing harm. The solution isn't some cheap fix, first giving end-of-the-world play to some incendiary fantasy and then inserting a line that says the preceding was utter rubbish. The real problem goes to the core of traditional news practices. As Greg Marx noted in a sensible Columbia Journalism Review posting, the solution is "making a more concerted effort not to disseminate false or dubious claims in the first place."

Isn't that simple? All the media has to do is fact check a story first and present the truth instead of repeating lies over and over again in the interest of "balance". Then we won't have to worry about an ill-informed public not getting the information they need on important issues. Issues that actually have an impact on their lives, like health care. Unfortunately, that appears too much to ask:

As the saying goes, what really matters isn't what people think, it's what they think about: Debunking falsehoods is fine, but the more that news media embrace it as if it's a cure-all, the worse we'll all be. The solution isn't to refute, it's to ignore. End the practice of rewarding the most sensational, the most irresponsible, the most baseless allegations with top-of-the-news billing. The media bury worthwhile news all the time; how about burying the worthless stuff?

There, however, the problem isn't so much with reporters, it's with their bosses, the ones who insist on running the screaming footage from "town meetings," on giving dramatic lies a prominence they don't deserve -- ensuring an audience, but also ensuring the lies a public life no reasoned refutation can end.

"He said, she said" has always been a dubious way to report the world. "We say" helps, but only a little. The real solution is simple: It's called news judgment.

Don't you love that? "News Judgment." What a miraculous concept. I wonder how we could actually make that happen?

Thank Edward for this rare bit of sanity from the media: edward_wasserman@hotmail.com

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In ‘01, Cheney said this on MTP:

CHENEY: It‘s been pretty well confirmed that he did go to Prague and he did meet with a senior official of the Iraqi intelligence service in Czechoslovakia last April.

on 6/19/04 CNBC, he said:

GLORIA BORGER, TV SHOW HOST: You have said in the past that it was, quote, “pretty well confirmed.”

CHENEY: No, I never said that. BORGER: OK.

CHENEY: I never said that. BORGER: I think that is…

CHENEY: Absolutely not.

It's not like we haven't seen this tale before. Cheney is getting ready to go on a Sunday Talk Show to discuss important issues, a big article appears that tries to completely justify his positions almost at the same time he's about to take the center stage. Wow. What a shock. One of Cheney's first victims and allies was the NY Times. Judy Miller was used as a a willing pawn when Cheney needed cover right before he was going on Meet the Press to help push the country into war with Iraq in 2002.
Cheney's team admitted during the Scooter Libby trial that using Meet the Press allowed them to control the message which was a major embarrassment for Tim Russert.

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BILL MOYERS: Was it just a coincidence in your mind that Cheney came on your show and others went on the other Sunday shows, the very morning that that story appeared?

TIM RUSSERT: I don't know. The NEW YORK TIMES is a better judge of that than I am.

BILL MOYERS: No one tipped you that it was going to happen?

TIM RUSSERT: No, no. I mean-

BILL MOYERS: The Cheney office didn't leak to you that there's gonna be a big story?

TIM RUSSERT: No. No. I mean, I don't have the-- This is, you know-- on MEET THE PRESS, people come on and th4ere are no ground rules. We can ask any question we want. I did not know about the aluminum tubes story until I read it in the NEW YORK TIMES.

BILL MOYERS: Critics point to September eight, 2002 and to your show in particular, as the classic case of how the press and the government became inseparable. Someone in the Administration plants a dramatic story in the NEW YORK TIMES And then the Vice President comes on your show and points to the NEW YORK TIMES. It's a circular, self-confirming leak.

TIM RUSSERT: I don't know how Judith Miller and Michael Gordon reported that story, who their sources were. It was a front-page story of the NEW YORK TIMES. When Secretary Rice and Vice President Cheney and others came up that Sunday morning on all the Sunday shows, they did exactly that.

My concern was, is that there were concerns expressed by other government officials. And to this day, I wish my phone had rung, or I had access to them.

Now the Washington Post has taken the job since Miller isn't around to pass along Bush talking points. I understand that at times anonymous sources play a role in breaking news, but this piece which is rife with anonymous sources is clearly there to provide cover for Cheney as he takes up his cause of justifying his horrific torture regime once again to the American people, but this time with a brand spanking new piece of propaganda from the elite media. The Sunday shows will have a field day with this...

Glenn Greenwald has more: 'The Washington Post's Cheney-ite defense of torture.'

If anyone ever tells you that they don't understand what is meant by "stenography journalism" -- or ever insists that America is plagued by a Liberal Media -- you can show them this article from today's Washington Post and, by itself, it should clear up everything. The article's headline is "How a Detainee Became An Asset -- Sept. 11 Plotter Cooperated After Waterboarding" -- though an equally appropriate headline would be: "The Joys and Virtues of Torture -- how Dick Cheney Kept Us Safe." I defy anyone to identify a single way the article would be different if The Post had let Dick Cheney write it himself...read on